Sunday, October 26, 2014

The 1st rankings for the College Football playoff are set to be released, and it is time as we enter November next weekend to look at who the Final 4 will be for the 2014 season. The main arguing points look to be whether or not to place conference champions in over non conference champions with better resumes.

As of now, the candidates appear to be:

The SEC West champ - I think the winner of this division will have 1 or fewer losses and should be in regardless of the result in the SEC Championship game.

The SEC East champ - If it's Georgia, they could lose to Auburn, win the East with 2 losses, and have a shot to get in by winning the SEC.

The SEC West runner up - If Miss State wins the SECW and the Auburn-Alabama winner has 1 loss, they should represent a second SEC bid.

One loss Big 10 champ - If it's Michigan St or Ohio St, there's definitely a chance the Big 10 gets a bid. Michigan State needs to win out, have Oregon lose again, and have the SEC West winner win the SEC.

One loss PAC 12 champ - This will probably have to be Oregon on the strength of their win over Michigan St. Arizona, Arizona St, and Utah all have 1 loss from the South, but have to play each other and Arizona St has Notre Dame as well.

Florida State - Should win out easily and will likely be #1 seed for the playoff.

Notre Dame - Will have the best loss of 1 loss teams if they win out, still have USC and Arizona St

The Big 12 Champ - A 1 loss Big 12 Champ would definitely be in the mix as well, but don't count on it being Kansas State as they still have trips to WVU, Baylor, and TCU. The Horned Frogs have a great shot at getting in position for the Final Four with a win over WVU next week.

I assume the committee will try and avoid rematches in the 1st round like 2 SECs or FSU/ND.

If there are no 0 or 1 loss SEC teams besides the champ and Notre Dame loses to say, Arizona St, that opens up spots for potential 1 loss champs from Big 10/PAC 12/Big 12. We could have this scenario:

1). FSU
2). Alabama
3). TCU
4). Oregon

This is where my "Michigan St needs Oregon to lose" comment comes into play. If they both have 1 loss, it's an easy choice for the committee to put Oregon in on the strength of their H2H win.Michigan St

Still lots of possibilities, I say there are still 17-18 teams that have a legitimate shot at the Final Four if they win out.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

The fall of the Big 10 is now complete. The once power conference, who had a run throughout much of college football history where you argue their supremacy over other conferences, has reached rock bottom. Once a threat to compete for the #1 final ranking year in and year out, the Big 10 is now no more than an afterthought.

The conference started winning national titles in the early 1900's and continued to churn out champs every few years until this recent stretch. The last title was the 2002 Ohio State team, and before them Michigan and Penn State claimed trophies in the 90's. We started to see the decline when mid-2000's Buckeye teams were manhandled by the likes of Florida and LSU in BCS Title games. The downward slide in quality of teams became more apparent the last couple of years with only 2 Rose Bowl wins since 2000. Michigan has been in decline for some time now, and the addition of former power Nebraska has done about as much to boost the conferences depth as Miami has in the ACC.

But after yesterday, we can comfortably say the league is nationally insignificant. Sure, Penn State-Ohio State and Nebraska-Wisconsin will have some meaning in the mid-west, but not much interest anywhere else. For those that missed it, a quick run-down of the Big 10's results from yesterday by category of disaster.

Group 1 - The "Top Tier" teams

1) Michigan State played well in Eugene and looked ready to make a statement, but Oregon outscored MSU 28-3 in the 2nd half and routed the Spartans.

2) Michigan failed to compete against Notre Dame, failing to score (after putting up 41 last year) and being humiliated by the Irish 31-0.

3) Pre-Season favorite Ohio State followed up their sluggish performance against Navy by getting rolled by Virginia Tech at home, 35-21.

4) Northwestern, a team thought to be on the rise, fell to 0-2 after losing at home to Northern Illinois.

5) Wisconsin rolled over FCS Western Illinois, but their collapse against LSU in Week 1 was magnified by the above results in week 2. The league really needed that win to point to after yesterdays results.

Group 2 - The "They've been good, maybe they are better this year" teams (spoiler alert: They aren't)